


his tongue bleeds candor

by ammunitionist



Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Cautious Affection, Introspection, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sleep Deprivation, so tender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:00:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22358338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ammunitionist/pseuds/ammunitionist
Summary: sleep hasn't come easy to schofield in a long time.neither has tenderness, but blake has an uncanny habit of dredging up the past.
Relationships: Lance Corporal Schofield/ Lance Corporal Blake, William Schofield/ Thomas Blake
Comments: 13
Kudos: 248





	his tongue bleeds candor

It's the first sleep Schofield has gotten in days.

He doesn't count the exactly timed rotations the battalion does nightly. Short personnel and deep in enemy territory, no soldier got more than two hours of sleep at a time. It meant walking zombies, grey-eyed and hair-triggered, but at this point jumpy and exhausted was better than lethargic and dead. Most of them don't sleep at all- it's not worth it. Not one of the squad, not even the younger boys (Schofield has a sneaking suspicion at least a couple of them had lied about their ages, there is no way they were older than sixteen) would admit it, but the nightmares aren't worth the precious few minutes one might glean from actually trying to sleep.

You just rested your eyes and waited, one hand on your rifle and the other on your heart.

He cherishes the rotations he gets with a precious few other soldiers. Browning isn't a sparkling conversationalist, but the man has a real passion for entomology- and his voice is deep, smooth, a baritone like Schofield used to hear on the radio plays back home. He doesn't mind if his companion dozes off, either- many a night has Schofield found himself drifting in and out of focus to the rich sound of Browning talking about one species of ant or another.

Graves and Kearney are the next closest thing he has to friends. Former from Essex, latter from Scotland, both men (younger than Schofield by almost ten years together) are pleasant in a way that Will just knows war will beat out of them. He himself was never a comedian, not even before shipping out, but there's a part of him that was capable of humor- really capable. He used to be able to make his mates guffaw like they were dying.

Now that they're actually dying, Schofield's found that part of him to be completely and totally shriveled.

They're pleasant, though. Schofield can beat them both in poker, blackjack, rummy, and war (ha) with his eyes closed. Kearney has more whiskey than he knows what to do with, so Schofield can at least rely on their rotations together to supply him with a little bit of brain grease.

Leaving a shift with Kearney meant a pleasant buzz that at least makes the half-conscious slump between rotations painless. Leaving a shift with Graves meant a few pence tucked in his pocket (though they were worthless here) and other small treasures as his spoils of cards. Leaving a shift with both of them meant plummeting into his cot with something like a smile on his face.

Will isn't put up with many other men. One of the small kindnesses of their commanding officers is that you stuck with your friends-- you were never put on watch with someone who couldn't make it less dreadful.

Richards, Quinn, Lesley-

and Blake.

Favorites don't matter here. War has never been about what the soldiers want. Schofield knows that. His commanding officers are not assigning shifts to please hawk-like parents in grade school, like teachers had done when he was young. They afford the small liberty to avoid mutiny, Will is sure of that. He should at least be grateful that they didn't go the opposite way.

Favorites don’t matter here, but Blake is Schofield's favorite watch partner.

Firstly, he's always happy. Maybe happy is a bit of an exaggeration, sure, but Blake always offers levity. Sanctity. The way he talks makes everyone feel better. He smiles through the bitterest winds, tosses a joke into their pitiful fires and pretends it'll ignite them into infernos. His blue eyes glitter in the near-darkness with a light that William knows the war should have snuffed by now.

He's never met anyone like Blake. Not in the war, not at home, not before he knew what war was. As far as Schofield knew, there was no one else like him on the entire bleeding planet.

_How can you still joke at times like these? How can you…_

"And I said, 'Well, Miss, it do seem like a bleeding hamster to me!"

Blake looks to Schofield expectantly, the older soldier staring absently into the meager flames of their campfire. Silence writhes between them like a caught snake, until Blake sighs; decapitating it with a single swift blow and bringing Will back to reality with a rather rude jolt.

"Hello? Lance Corporal Schofield? You in there, Scho?" Blake waves a pale hand in front of his face, stained orange by the fire and then white by the contrasting blackness behind Schofield. Will pushes it away patiently, like a weathered university professor disengaging an eager-to-please freshman student.

"Yes, I… erm, sorry. Spaced out."

Blake nods wisely. Though young himself, it seemed that Blake knew what the veterans of their battalion had seen. If Schofield had possessed any sense of superstition, he would have called it second sight by now. Unfortunately, any sense of God, religion or higher power had been beaten out of Will by the second time he'd seen the inside of another man's skull.

They settle into a quietness. Schofield hesitates to call it a silence because it's really not-- there's too many interfering noises to call it silence. Overhead, stiff old oak trees rustle in an invisible breeze. Their fires, other fires crackle- the noise faintly reminds Schofield of popping firecrackers on the pavestones back in London, something he did on summer nights as a boy. Murmured voices, carried by that same invisible wind, drift through their tiny camp.

Blake tosses a shredded leaf into the fire. Schofield does the same.

"Scho, can I ask you a question?"

Schofield's nostrils flare imperceptibly. He doesn’t particularly like the nickname.

"Yes."

Blake pulls a string off of his pants and tosses it into the fire. Schofield watches the wool thread writhe on top of the burning wood.

"Why are we at war?"

It's a child's question. Schofield has to stifle the sudden flood of annoyance burning through his veins. He never liked kids, especially not now.

Everyone knows why they're at war. They're at war to get the evil Germans, the Ottomans, the Bulgarians. Schofield has seen renditions of their leaders on propaganda pamphlets. They're grotesque, greedy. The war was a crusade of Good against Evil.

Except, of course, not really. Every soldier knows it, somewhere deep in his soul. The war, as all wars are, is about something that no man dying in a field hospital would ever care about.

It's about politics. Greed. Rich men in power. National intricacies and treatise and money. Waxing poetic about _national integrity_ only did so much to hide it.

Schofield brushes sandy hair back from his eyes and looks Blake up and down.

Shit, he's young. What, twenty? Twenty-two? His face still holds the joyous roundness of boyhood, sculpted with the trappings of manhood by nothing less than brute force. He's not stupid, Schofield knows that, but he's innocent. It almost makes Will laugh.

Innocence, in a place like this.

His eyes lock with the uncannily piercing blue of Lance Corporal Blake's, and William finds himself giving a much more honest answer than he ever intended to.

"I don't know."

After that, it's really silent. No breeze interrupts the dreamlike bubble of sound that seems to envelop the two men. No campfire, no distant chatter. Schofield can't even hear his own breathing. It's like a heavy blanket of snow has descended upon their little commune, dampening every noise to a dying whisper.

Blake doesn't stop looking at him. Schofield feels pierced. Pinned to the tree he leans against. He feels incredibly _seen._

It's terrifying.

Schofield wouldn't dare break the moment. He can't, he doesn't think, not really. Not a muscle in his body would move if he commanded it to. They're all burning, on fire, incendiary with perception.

William could be in the total nude and he wouldn't feel much more naked than he does now.

Blake breaks it. He breaks it like it was never there in the first place. He just gets up and moves, like Schofield's total paralysis had just been a momentary pause in the conversation. His body is fluid in the firelight, just as uncertain and bright as the tongues of flame.

Schofield has barely remembered where he is by the time Blake is sitting next to him, wool uniform scratching against wool. The tree is big enough for the two of them to lean on, but- as he finds himself fully returned to reality- he realizes that Blake is much closer than he needs to be.

A head of thick brown hair tucks itself into the crook of Will's neck and he jumps, exhaustion making him hyper-aware. The touch is like a million tiny kisses, thin wisps of hair resting against the hollow of his throat in a way so intimate it makes him want to cry out. Blake seems oblivious, like the act of laying his head on Schofield's collar is as normal as shaking his hand.

And, Schofield finds, he's not nervous.

He's not scared.

The touch against his throat, a part of his body long since off limits to anyone, sends warm blood flooding to his extremities. Blake's weight on his shoulder is as familiar as his pack, his rifle.

It makes him realize just how tired he is.

Schofield knows they'll get chewed out by their replacements for sleeping, but he doesn’t care. His body is so rapidly descending into exhaustion that he just cannot stop himself.

"I'm cold," Blake says quietly. It's almost inaudible.

"I know," says Schofield, just as quietly. A tired hand cups the gentle curve of Blake's waist.

"Me too."

**Author's Note:**

> helllllo!! this is my 3rd fic in a relatively small tag so most of you probably know me by now, lol. i tried a few notable different things with this one. more ACTION! more DIALOGUE! more ROMANCE! more SLEEP? seriously, someone get these dudes a pillow. 
> 
> comments, as always, appreciated :)


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